I think precisely because it is part of the wallpaper. I have had people ask 'what was all that genome stuff for anyway?'. The answer I give is that, it doesn't radically change the world, it just makes everything that I do a bit (and in some cases, really quite a bit) easier. Multiply that by a few million scientists and you have lots of small benefits meaning that we are probably 10-15 years further ahead than we would otherwise be.

My tongue in cheek comments about chemoinformatics and bioinformatics were very deliberate. Chemoinformatics really seems to be at about the stage of the flint axe head compared to bioinformatics. But I think, and your comment about Andre's talk here is absolutely apposite, that it is really about culture. Biologists _assume_ that data should be made public because there is a history of it. It is embedded in the culture.